This week’s free Deke’s Techniques episode demonstrates a (fairly ridiculous) method for shrinking a model’s head while leaving his body in standard proportion. Although, at first glance, this seems like another wacky manifestation of Deke’s fertile imagination (or homage to David Byrne’s Stop Making Sense big white suit), there are legitimate reasons (and skills) involved in learning how to transform one part of an image while matching the remaining parts.

Ultimately, Deke shows you how to take the normally proportioned model on the left, shrink his head, and realign his shoulders to match. Using a combination of layer mechanics, the Free Transform command, and of course the tricky, but oh-so-useful Liquify command, the effect is seamless:

The fact is, reducing one part of an image while making the remaining part match up is an exercise in careful use of the Liquify command. In this tutorial, Deke will show you how to work within the Liquify dialog box so that you can accurately see how the edges are going to match up between the layers. In order to keep the suit’s pinstripes aligned, you need to know how to employ the power that resides within the Liquify dialog box. It’s not a quick process, but the result is both whimsical and demonstrative of real Photoshop skill.

If you’re feeling contrary, and you’re a member of lynda.com, Deke also has a member-exclusive new movie this week for increasing the size of a model’s head.